He was very calm over it, was Jean Baptiste; but the _turning point_ in his life had come. At last his manhood had returned, _and he was ready to fight_.

He wrote his attorney at once at Gregory, and the reply that came back in due time was:

"GREGORY, S.D., July -- 191--

"_Mr. Jean Baptiste_,

"FRIEND JEAN: Replying to yours regarding the claim, it was Eugene Crook who got it. He went to Chicago and bought it from your wife, through her father. I understand that your wife refused to sell, whereupon, Crook sent for the Reverend who was at Cairo, sending him the railroad fare to Chicago at the same time. I do not, of course, know just what followed, but it is the report here, that the Reverend had his daughter to execute the relinquishment, and Crook returned and filed on the claim.

"I understand, further, that Crook got the idea from reading your book, wherein you told of the preacher and what he had done, although anonymously. It is also reported that Crook paid the Elder $300 for the claim.

"Very truly yours,

"WM. MCCONNELL."

Jean Baptiste laughed when he had completed the letter, picked up one of his books and looking through it, found the place. "Well, old boy, I guess you lost me more than I'll make out of you; but you've given me what I ought to have had three years ago!" He was silent then, but his face took on a cold, hard expression, whereupon he laughed again.

"N.J. McCarthy, we vied twenty-five years ago, and we encountered three years since. On both occasions you had me at a disadvantage.... We are _going_ to _vie_ again, now; _but it will be upon an equal basis_." So saying, he looked before him at nothing; his eyes narrowed to mere slits.

An hour later his grip was packed. He went that afternoon back to Tripp County. His three hundred acres of wheat had failed, so he was unencumbered. He returned to Winner, and the next morning he boarded a train for Chicago.

And of the battle that he fought with his august contemporary, will be the continuance of our story.

CHAPTER VIII

ACTION

Jean Baptiste went directly to an attorney, a Negro attorney with offices in the loop district, upon his arrival in Chicago, and did not lurk around the depots to keep from being seen this time. He was well acquainted with the one upon whom he called and they greeted each other cordially when he walked into the office.

"Well, White," he said. "I think I have a little work for you."

"That's what I'm here to look after," said the other aimiably.

"A suit--want to obtain a judgment?"

"We obtain judgments in this old town every day. The question is--"

"Are they worth anything?" laughed his prospective client.

After indulging in a bit of humor the which he was at times given to, his face cleared, his eye-brows contracted and he related the business upon which he was bent, and questioned the attorney concerning the law covering such cases or instances.

"Yes," said the other, after looking it up in the Illinois Statutes, "it can be done."

"Then we will begin at once," said Baptiste decidedly.

"I'll have the papers drawn up, and have the same ready for service tomorrow afternoon."

"Very well," said the other, handing him a check for twenty-five dollars as a retainer, and straightway left the office.

He caught the State Street car and went to visit his friends on Federal Street. They were delighted and surprised to see him looking so well, and so carefree.

"Why--what has happened to you," said Mildred's mother, looking him over carefully from head to foot.

"You infer that I have forgotten my troubles?"

"Of course," and she laughed.

"You'll know in a few days," he returned. Soon he bade them good-by and went over to the Keystone where he encountered Speed.

"Well, I have everything ready now," said the attorney when Jean called at his office the following afternoon.

"So the next is to get service on my friend," said Baptiste.

"That's it. Where shall we find him?" inquired the lawyer.

"I don't know. I suppose you might call up his wife on Vernon Avenue and find out. Of course, she need not know what our business is with her old man...."

"Of course not."

In a few minutes he was talking to her over the telephone. "The Elder is in the southern part of the State," Baptiste could hear.

"Yes, madam; but what place.... I see.... He will be there over Sunday you say?... I understand.... What do I want with him? Why, I have a little _personal_ matter with him.... Yes ... that is all."

The attorney turned and advised him where the Elder was, and would be there until after Sunday, and as that day was Wednesday, Baptiste breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's the town near where I first knew him. I was born within four miles of it."

"Indeed! Something of a coincidence."

"Indeed so."

"I'll get these papers off to the sheriff down there on the evening train. He'll get them tomorrow morning, and should get service on him tomorrow afternoon."

"Then I'll see you about Saturday."

"All right," and Jean was gone.

The little town near where Jean Baptiste was born, and where he had met the man who was now his acknowledged enemy, had not changed much.

Perched on the banks of the Ohio, it still lingered in a state of dull lethargy; loafers held to the corners, and arguments were the usual daily routine. When he had left the town, the Odd Fellows' hall, an old frame building, three stories high, had stood conspicuously on a corner, and had been the rendezvous for loafers for years untold. This had been torn down and replaced since by a more commanding brick structure, at the front of which a shed spread over the walk and made welcome shade in the afternoon. And under it on benches the usual crowd gathered reposing comfortably thereunder from day to day. Under it the preachers sometimes paused on their return from the postoffice where they received their mail every afternoon. And it was the afternoon train that brought the papers for N. Justine McCarthy. The sheriff who happened at the postoffice at the same time the Elder did, received them, and upon his return to his office in the court house, laid the mail on his desk and went at once to serve the papers.

He knew that Odd Fellows' hall was where Negroes might be easily found; at least the information as to the whereabouts of any particular one might be obtained. So to that spot he went directly.